Bobby Abreu survives first Hall of Fame vote

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The 2020 Hall of Fame voting finished up on Tuesday. Derek Jeter and Larry Walker became the newest elected members of the MLB Hall of Fame. Jeter received all but 1 vote, becoming the all-time leading vote-getter for a position player.

Walker got into the Hall by the skin of his teeth. He didn’t even believe he’d make the HoF earlier in the day, sending out this Tweet.

Although I believe I’m going to come up a little short today I still wanna thank all you that have been pulling for me and showing your support. I’m grateful for all of you! It’s been fun leading up to today reading everyone’s thoughts. Cheers ? LW

— Larry Walker (@Cdnmooselips33) January 21, 2020

He made the 75% threshold by 6 votes, becoming the second-ever Canadian born HoFer (Fergie Jenkins 1991).

In Phillies related news, Curt Shilling got closer to enshrinement, garnering 70% of the vote. Former Phillies rookie of the year Scott Rolen received 35.3% of the vote. Billy Wagner was close behind at 31.7%. Cliff Lee managed to receive 2 votes and Raul Ibanez got 1, giving every former Phillies on the ballot at least 1 vote.

The most interesting Phillies’ news of the day comes in the form of Bobby Abreu. Abreu received 22 votes or 5.5% of the total votes, just making a return to the 2021 ballot.

Abreu’s career makes an interesting case. He never had the benefit of playing for any particularly good teams. No World Series ever featured the likes of Bobby Abreu, however, he did slash .284/.392/.418 in the 20 postseason games he did play in.

Bobby Abreu seems to be an underrated offensive player. For his career, Abreu slashed .291/.395/.475. He had a rare combination of speed, power, and clutchness.

He had 400 career stolen bases to go with 288 career home runs. With men on base, Abreu would be the last player an opposing pitcher would want to face, slashing .315/.423/.510 (for his CAREER). If the bases were loaded, Abreu would make any team pay dearly with a .355/.414/.596 triple slash.

His time with the Phillies is amazing in itself. For 9 seasons, Abreu hit the mystical 3/4/5 slash line (>.300 BA, .400 OBP, and .500 slugging). A .303/.416/.513 would strike fear into any pitcher’s heart.

Certainly, a case can be made for Bobby Abreu in the Hall of Fame. We’ll have to wait for next year to see if he can improve from 5.5%.

Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports